


The Favour of Jotenheimen

by Anyawen



Series: Mythology tales [3]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: M/M, Mythology - Freeform, norse myth inspired - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25161133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anyawen/pseuds/Anyawen
Summary: Q's only hope of survival is to offer himself as a sacrifice, as counter-intuitive as that is. His offer is accepted. He lives with the consequences and gifts he has purchased with his life.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Series: Mythology tales [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1814737
Comments: 4
Kudos: 61





	The Favour of Jotenheimen

**Author's Note:**

> Fills the 2018 anon prompt 'Norse Mythology AU', and the 2020 007 fest classic table prompt 'Q in another country'.

He’d heard rumors of the well, but he’d never thought to find it. He hadn’t been sure it was real, and certainly hadn’t gone looking for it. Nevertheless, when he’d stumbled upon it as he escaped the men who’d kidnapped him off the street in Oxford — and put him on a fucking _plane_ over the North Sea - he had recognized it, and knew that it offered a chance of survival. 

If he was willing to sacrifice himself for it.

They’d wanted him to hack the Chinese. He’d expected violence when he refused. Instead, they’d just left him shivering in his inadequate clothing and driven away from the old farmhouse, saying they’d be back the next morning to see if he was ready to help them. There was no electricity, no running water, no source of light or heat. It was early May, and he was in the middle of … Well. He hadn’t been sure.

Staring at the well, and the tree behind it — tall but not massive, it still gave the impression of immense age and majesty — he had a better idea of where he was. If he was, indeed, still in the known world. 

It had the feel of a place that could only be found by those who weren’t seeking it.

He’d searched the farmhouse and the small dilapidated barn after his kidnappers had gone. He knew he’d survive the night if he stayed, but he also knew that eventually the cold would break him. And once he surrendered and did what his captors ordered, he’d never be free. There would always be another thing they needed from him, and another, and having capitulated once, he’d never be able to stand up to them again.

If the cold was going to take him either way, he’d been determined that it would take him unbroken in mind and spirit. He’d taken the old, musty, moth-eaten scrap of a horse blanket he’d found in the barn and walked out into the night.

There were still patches of snow on the ground, but though the liquid water on the ground frosted at the edges, it didn’t freeze. On the one hand, that meant he didn’t slip on the ice as he trudged through the dark of the night, but on the other hand, it meant that his shoes got wet. He shivered and shuddered through the night, stumbling over rocks and sticks, moving south by the stars — downhill as chance had it — at nearly a right angle to the road his captors had taken when they’d abandoned him.

He’d walked through the night. He’d known better than to stop.

The sun had been up for perhaps two hours when he’d spotted the well. It was little more than a small spring bubbling up from a crack in the rock when looked at straight on, but when he turned his head a low stone wall ringed the spot in his peripheral vision.

He remembered the stories he’d read as a child, and knew that the gifts of this well had been sought by gods. They were only granted in exchange for sacrifices judged worthy, and he wasn’t confident that he, or any mortal man, could offer anything of note.

He felt vaguely ridiculous, and wondered if the cold was affecting his mind, but he would die out here without help. So he asked, and he offered.

When the hikers at Gjende Lake found him two days later, his right eye - which had been the stronger of the two - was milky white and blind. He was taken to hospital and treated for frostbite, dehydration, and malnutrition. After he was released and got himself home to England, he had one last bit of grey-hat hacking to do.

It took him three days to track down the men who had kidnapped him, and to trace their various connections to arms traffickers. He delivered the information — and his CV — to the head of MI6 via secure channels he should not have been able to access.

The woman who showed up at his flat with a job offer in hand the following day seemed made of steel and stone. He wondered vaguely if she had a patron god or goddess herself.

He accepted the offer after amending it slightly. MI6 would keep him clothed, fed, and securely housed, but he would take no salary beyond that. He had already been paid for his services, at the well. 

His life, in exchange for his life.

And then there was the other gift of the well.

His eye had not bought him wisdom, exactly, but a way of seeing that was a sort of intuition, allowing him to build the right tools for each job, or agent. His native genius could have gotten him into MI6, but it was the intuition he’d received from the well that helped him keep his agents safe.

And so, he lived the life he had given away in service to his country. He built the firewalls and wrote the codes that keep others out, and the tools his agents need to achieve their goals. He grumbled at the agents for failing to even try to bring those tools back, but he made sure they always have what they need.

The only time he ever doubted his intuition was after he met Bond. The agent was loyal to a fault, dedicated to Queen and country, but there was a weariness in him. He was going through the motions, always striving to complete his mission, but without any real interest in surviving to return home.

Bond had nothing to return to. He needed something. Or, perhaps, someone.

He wanted to be that someone for Bond, but his life wasn’t his own - sacrificed to the well as it had been, and returned only to be used in service. He feared that wanting Bond and acting on that desire would be a violation of the terms of his survival. He didn’t know what sort of punishment might come from such a transgression, but he would not put Bond at risk. He would not act on the intuition that told him that Bond wanted him, and would accept him as the anchor he needed. It was, he thought, likely wishful thinking anyway.

He said as much, musing aloud to his rescue cats Huginn and Muninn, and was shocked when they hissed and spat. He’d adopted the two old toms from a shelter shortly after joining MI6, and for all their rough looks, they’d never been anything but affectionate, temperate beasties. They were certainly expressing disapproval now. Though he didn’t quite believe his spontaneous decision to name them for Odin’s ravens gave them any actual connection to the well and the powers behind it, he didn’t quite _disbelieve_ it either. He was living proof that there were gods who would bargain if the stakes were right.

He decided he would not act directly on his wishes, but he would not fight the intuition that told him to act as Bond’s anchor. He would not hide his interest, but he would not make the first move. 

He had expected more of the banter and bickering that had been their standard interaction. Perhaps a bit more flirting.

He had not expected Bond to respond to being chastised about a damaged car and _yet another_ missing gun by smiling fondly. Q stopped mid-rant.

“What?” he demanded.

“Nothing.”

“No. You’re smiling. Why are you smiling?”

“I like this part.”

“You like the part where I reprimand you for your carelessness and willful destruction of my tech?”

“I like the part where you’re furious and passionate, and _I’m_ your focus,” Bond replied.

“I— You … want my focus?”

“And your passion,” Bond responded. “Though, perhaps without the fury. If that’s something you’d be interested in.”

Q smiled.

When he finally brought Bond home, Huginn and Muninn purred their approval.


End file.
